The Six Most Important Words in Obama’s D.N.C. Speech

President Barack Obama delivered yesterday’s line of the night: “We don’t look to be ruled.” Many lines by many speakers were delivered, of course, but none quite measured up to that one. Commenters on both the left and the right picked up on it and, even when complaining about Obama, acknowledged its force. I’m going to speculate about why.

Part of the reason is obvious. Few of us look to be ruled, so Obama was just echoing the feeling of any ordinary citizen in the developed world. A line like that works even better on Americans, because it speaks to our core identity. Even with limited history instruction, we still know the United States came into being as an experiment in self-government and in resistance to monarchical rule.

Nevertheless, a statement like “we don’t look to be ruled” would have been dismissed as a platitude or an oddity four years ago. Only the candidacy of Donald Trump could give it the power it had last night. Obama’s delivery of it, almost with a chuckle, made Trump seem like someone on the fringe. A framing had clicked into place: the election was about self-government versus rule by a strongman. It felt solid.

Again: Why? If you read the statements of Donald Trump, you’ll find no promise, or even implied promise, to do away with democracy’s checks and balances or to bypass Congress. It’s also more than a little rich that Obama could tut-tut about putting up with the nuisances of congressional obstruction given his own generous use of executive orders, issued, he says, in response to do-nothing legislators.

Still, Trump has an obsession with strength and with strongmen that’s hard to deny. It comes up a lot in his statements. Beyond that, when listening to Trump deliver his speech in Cleveland last week, I was struck by how little mention he made of voter agency. “I am your voice,” Trump declared. “I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you.” Contrast that with the message of Obama in 2008: that people couldn’t leave things solely to the president, that they would have to stay on the case. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Obama said. “We are the change that we seek.”

There’s some irony to this. As beautifully as Obama speaks of democracy and public involvement, many feel his governance has been decidedly geared toward closed-door meetings with bigwigs. Journalist Noam Scheiber has described Obama’s ideology as one of “boardroom liberalism,” characterized by a belief that the world works best when “elites use their power magnanimously, not when they’re forced to share it.” Meanwhile, the rise of Donald Trump came about precisely as a rejection of elites, with Republican voters shooting down $100 million candidates like Jeb Bush who’d been packaged and laid at their feet. Many would say Trump’s victories were a re-assertion of self-rule and democracy, not an abdication of it.

But, ultimately, Obama can still be hypocritical yet correct—failing to practice what he preaches but succeeding in summing up a foe. That Trump has consistently sent a message of “leave it to me” along with “process be damned” is very hard to deny. This was a candidate who declared that U.S. soldiers would have to violate the laws of war if he commanded it, and one cannot just walk such an assertion back, even though Trump tried to do so. It’s often said that the presidency is much more powerful and much less powerful than people think, and that means that Trump would be stymied in many ways but unrestrained in many others. That unrestrained part is a big deal. Obama’s line wasn’t just a gimmick.

There was more to the convention last night, of course. We heard from Tim Kaine, who came across as a decent fellow and nearly perfect choice for Hillary Clinton, regardless of whether you like his politics or not. We heard from Joe Biden, who delivered a not-that-convincing endorsement of the former secretary of state (whom he seems not to like much) but a fairly persuasive criticism of Trump. We heard from Michael Bloomberg, precisely the sort of coastal establishment figure against which Trump supporters are in rebellion, who gave a mostly predictable but still effective speech. We also heard a lot of Democratic politicians at their hackneyed worst, with Harry Reid putting in an especially notable performance. The reason Trump chose the Republican Party, suggested Reid, was that he asked himself the following: “I’m an egomaniac. I don’t believe in science. I think women are inferior. Where would I feel at home?” Yeah, great way to woo the undecideds.

But all that was forgotten, from Kaine’s deft punches to Reid’s crude slashes, after Obama gave his speech. Sometimes, Obama’s oratory feels dead, and other times it works a spell. Obama had a good night last night. Therefore, so did Hillary Clinton.